' I felt like my senses were under attack' : an interpretative phenomenological analysis of experiences of hypersensitivity in autistic individuals

While atypical sensory processes have become central to scientific explanatory models of autism, such models usually do not explicitly address first-person experiences of sensory processes by autistic individuals. Detailed phenomenological research of this subjective domain is nonetheless essential to ground explanatory accounts in the actual experiences and challenges faced by autistic individuals. Therefore, our study consisted of an interpretative phenomenological analysis of 18 semi-structured interviews with autistic individuals about their experiences of hypersensitivity. Overall, our analysis showed how hypersensitivity pertained to disturbances at a basic level of bodily self-experience and also affected other crucial phenomenological experiential dimensions such as the subjective perception of time and space, sense-making processes, intersubjectivity, and moods. Hypersensitivities were described by participants as intrusive experiences of being vulnerably exposed to overwhelming stimuli that invaded their bodies and were simultaneously related to an invasive, chaotic, unpredictable or threatening perception of the (social) environment. Our study highlights the impact of hypersensitivities on experiential domains outside the strict sensory register, thereby providing further evidence for altered sensory processing as a potential core mechanism involved in a variety of autistic symptoms. Our study also indicates the clinical importance of therapeutic interventions that act on a fragile sense of embodiment in autism.